Review: "Splice"

"Splice" is unlike any cinematic experience I've had this year, or ever.

It starts out as clever science fiction with a strong bent of morality, as scientists break ethical barriers over human cloning. Then it turns into a horror film, briefly a sexual thriller, and it ends on a fairly standard action movie note. A final, unsettling coda gives the audience one last kick in the gut.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the part where it turns into a comedy. At least, there are some very funny moments, though I'm still figuring out if the movie was trying to do this, or was even aware of it.

All I know is I really enjoyed myself. Here's a mainstream film that truly dares to be daring.

"Splice" is a disturbing movie that takes chances and isn't just out to scare its audience -- it really wants to blow their minds. The audience at the advance screening was uproarious, screeching one moment and bewildered the next. One woman did not stop laughing for 10 minutes solid, even when the film had moved past its neck-whipping changeup and resumed serious-and-scary mode.

Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody play Elsa and Clive, two cutting-edge biochemists working for Newstead, a big pharmaceutical company. Their latest creation is a pair of larvae-looking things that produce proteins important to life-saving drugs the company hopes to get rich off of.

The pair have an insouciant edge, favoring studded black leather jackets, and are featured on the cover of Wired magazine. They're rock stars in lab coats.

When Newstead proposes to shut down their pure research lab in favor of something they can quickly monetize, Elsa suggests one last experiment combining human and animal DNA -- just to prove they can do it. They'll flush it before the fetus gets too far along.

Things go well -- too well. Before they know it, an ugly little two-legged baby creature is born. Clive favors killing it, but Elsa sees the child she always secretly wanted but protested they didn't have time for. Soon the creature grows into a slightly less ugly, more or less human-looking child they name Dren.

Dren seems to have near-human intelligence but can't talk, preferring a series of clicks and high-pitched hums. As she approaches her teen years in a matter of weeks, Dren starts showing signs of rebellion and a desire to escape the confines of the laboratory basement where the scientists have stuck her.

Elsa and Clive take her to Elsa's old family farm, where they lock Dren in the barn, and things start to get loopy. Growing quickly to adulthood, Dren is now played by Delphine Chanéac -- with a little assistance from CGI. She has a shallow channel that bisects her hairless head, eyes that are a bit too far apart and feral, and legs jointed like a dog's. Dren also has gills and ... well, some other accessories that will reveal themselves in time.

At this point I must cop out and decline to reveal anything further that happens, because this film's appeal is based entirely on continually surprising its audience. All I'll say is that there's a point where the movie is heading toward a place that makes one think, "They couldn't possibly really be going there" -- and then they go there.

As shocking, ridiculous and disturbing as this development is, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because the last half of "Splice" just keeps doubling down on sheer weirdness and plot twists that inspire laughter and terror -- often in equal doses, and simultaneously.

To be honest, I don't know for sure if director Vincenzo Natal (who is also a co-screenwriter) intended for the comedic parts in a schlocky way. Brody and Polley pitch their performances in a way that makes me think they're in on the gag, but I'm not entirely certain.

What I took away from "Splice" was a profound sense of discomfort that I really liked experiencing. This movie knocked me out of my comfort zone in a major way, kept me guessing nearly all of the time, and made me feel like my skin wanted to crawl away from my body.

Inserted amidst a summer of cookie-cutter plots and action-packed idiocy, "Splice" is an unnerving movie that I'll not soon forget.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Gattaca" (1997)

"Gattaca" is a great modern example of good old-fashioned "hard" science fiction.

Back in the day, sci-fi writers were obsessed with technology and the how-tos of things like space exploration and time travel. Only later did the genre become more concerned with how people existed psychologically in fantastical settings, what helped them emotionally navigate the stars.

Put it this way: "Star Trek" is a franchise that started out as hard science fiction, and got softer as time went on.

Writer/director Andrew Niccol's 1997 film is obsessed with minutia of a how a genetically inferior human -- an In-Valid -- passes himself off as one of the test tube-created Valid elites. We watch in fascination as Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) carefully scrapes his skin down every day, fills false finger pad prosthetics with blood and surreptitiously dumps capsules full of skin flakes and hair follicles at his work station.

All this is so he can pass himself off as Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), one of the anointed who was paralyzed in a car crash and is renting himself out as a "borrowed ladder." The term refers to the double helix that makes up the genetic code. Jerome stays at home, filling up specimen bags and vials with his blood, urine and surface detritus, which Vincent then uses to pass the frequent genetic scans necessary for access to the upper echelons of society.

It's a world in the proverbial not-too-distant future, where ancestry determines the future.

Vincent/Jerome is amazed when applies for a job at Gattaca, the mammoth agency that runs all the space missions that he yearns to voyage on, and is accepted after a scan of his urine. What about the interview, he asks, and is told that was it. "My real resume is in my cells," he narrates. "We now have discrimination down to a science."

Vincent is a "God child" -- one of the unwashed who was conceived naturally. Later his parents decided to have another son, Anton, using genetic screening. As a teenager, Vincent's father shoots down his dream of becoming exploring space in the harshest terms, pointing to the 99 percent chance the doctors foretold that his faulty heart will not allow him to live past age 30: "The only way you will ever see the inside of a spaceship is if you are cleaning it."

Undeterred by the total lack of parental faith, or the preening bigotry of his younger brother, Vincent takes a job as a janitor at Gattaca, spending his nights pumping up his frail body and studying to be a space navigator. But all his applications are a dead end as soon as he's asked for a DNA sample.

Then he meets a "degener" broker (Tony Shalhoub) who pairs up In-Valids with Valids. Upon meeting Jerome, glumly trolling around his swank modernist apartment in a wheelchair, Vincent complains that he can't pass as him since Jerome is British. "Blood has no nationality," the broker smoothly assures. "As long as it's got what they're looking for, it's the only passport you'll ever need."

And it works. Vincent/Jerome has spent the last few years working his way up the rungs at Gattaca, and is slated for the next mission to Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, the next week.

Then all hell breaks loose when the program director is murdered, bludgeoned to death with his own keyboard. Despite his precautions, a single eyelash of Vincent's is found nearby, so all suspicion falls upon him. Of course, the authorities can't find him, because they don't know he's living as Jerome.

Alan Arkin plays a crusty police detective who wants to do scans of all the Gattaca employees, Valid and In-Valid, but his boss (Loren Dean) is worried at upsetting the company honcho (Gore Vidal) by disturbing their work.

Even though the story is set up as a whodunit, "Gattaca" is so much more enjoyable beyond the potboiler plot mechanics. It's wonderful to sit back and soak in the textures and the subtext.

For example, dating is tricky in a world based on eugenics. Uma Thurman plays Irene, a co-worker at Gattaca who takes a keen interest in "Jerome" as a potential mate. She steals a hair from his desk drawer (which had been carefully placed there) and takes it to a genetic boutique. There the clientele -- mostly women -- anonymously turn in bits of DNA they've collected on the sly for scanning (one woman has her lips swabbed after a kiss). Irene is complimented on her purloined hair: "A 9.3 ... quite a catch!"

Irene fesses up to her crime to Vincent/Jerome, and even admits that she has a slight imperfection with her heart that will keep her from ever blasting off into deep space. She plucks a blonde hair from her head and offers it to him for scanning, telling him to get back to him if he's still interested.

Sounds horrible, but is it really that dissimilar from today's dating world where prospects offer their vital statistics online -- often fudged, particular when it comes to male height and female weight -- and people run criminal background checks before the first date, and research credit history before getting in too deep?

Or consider the film's outright discrimination against the genetically inferior, or "genelism." The sorting of people into one walk of life or another based on a DNA scan is an extreme representation, but again, we can find parallels in our current society.

People are denied medical coverage, or charged exorbitant rates for it, based on mere predispositions toward certain conditions -- often determined by the health of one's parents, grandparents and siblings. And anyone who's ever shopped around for life insurance can attest to the ridiculous premiums demanded if something like diastolic blood pressure comes up a couple of blips above what is considered ideal.

I love the look of the film, which was nominated for an Oscar for art direction. It's sort of an early 1960s New Frontier meets 1940s film noir, flavored with a futuristic antiseptic look. The Valid women and men wear similar dark suits, and troll around with their hands grasped behind them. Cars resemble little classic European sports cars converted to electricity.

What's most disturbing about "Gattaca" is the way everyone seems to blithely accept this "DNA is destiny" mentality -- all except Vincent, of course. He seems driven as much to prove himself to be as good as any of the genetically pure humans as any actual desire for space travel. His real grasping for something beyond his human limitations occurs within.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Waterworld"

Watching "The Book of Eli," it got me to thinking about other spectacularly dumb post-apocalyptic films. "Waterworld" has very similar themes, even though in "Eli" people constantly fight over water, whereas in the 1995 Kevin Costner movie there's far too much of it.

I hadn't seen "Waterworld" since it came out in theaters nearly 15 years ago, and it was actually a better movie than I remembered. Yes, it is at times a silly, stupid experience. But it seems to recognize itself for what it is, and has a bit of fun with it. Unlike "Eli," which I'm less forgiving toward because it's so self-serious.

As is often the case, Roger Ebert said it best: "'Waterworld' is a decent futuristic action picture with some great sets, some intriguing ideas, and a few images that will stay with me. It could have been more, it could have been better, and it could have made me care about the characters. It's one of those marginal pictures you're not unhappy to have seen, but can't quite recommend."

There was much ridiculing of Costner's get-up in the movie. He plays the Mariner, a mysterious loner who travels a world completely covered in water (or so everyone thinks). He wears a strange array of leather vest, striped pants, long hair pulled back in a high knot, and various dangly bits and weapons.

The Mariner cruises around in a fancy trimaran that he's outfitted with all sorts of contraptions so he can pilot her alone, raising the sails and doing slick maneuvers and such. Like the classic loner of this type of films he's a man of violence but not a bad heart, who wants to be left alone but finds himself caring for some townsfolk he stumbles across.

Since there's no towns, an atoll will have to do. The Mariner puts in there to do some trading, but gets assaulted when he's found to be a mutant. He has gills behind his ears, webbed toes and can swim and breathe underwater. He's about to be executed when the Smokers attack.

The equivalent of the roving gangs of marauders from "The Road Warrior," the Smokers kill and destroy in the pursuit of the few remaining natural resources: Fresh water, dirt, food, etc. They're led by Deacon, the bald-headed villain played by Dennis Hopper.

Deacon gets his eye blown out by the Mariner during the attack on the atoll, and spends the rest of the movie wearing a jury-rigged patch over it -- but not before a hilariously creepy scene in which the Smoker doctor tries to implant a huge fake-looking prosthetic eye into the gaping socket. Hopper is a real hoot in the movie, seeming to realize what a big joke it all is.

The civilians are Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn), a comely lass, and Enola (Tina Majorino), a young girl with a strange tattoo on her back that turns out to be a map to the last dry land. Deacon wants the map, so he sends out his goons after the Mariner and his passengers.

Like the MacGuffin of the Bible in "The Book of Eli," Enola's tattoo isn't well thought out as a plot device. It's a very simple map, with a big globe and some latitude and longitude numbers, that could easily be copied down after a brief glance. There's no need to actually have the girl in your possession to use the knowledge.

Also, it's made explicit that Enola originally came from dry land, and must have been sent out by her parents/protectors into the watery void. Why? Two bodies are found when they finally reach dry land, peacefully nestled side by side, and somebody says something to the effect that they must have known they were going to die. From what, illness? Both at the same time? Seems unlikely. And even so, if you're going to give your tiny daughter a tattoo so she can find her way back, it's not very helpful to put it on her back where she can't see it.

Director Kevin Reynolds, who previously teamed with Costner on "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," stages some nice action sequences in the days before CGI. The film went massively over budget, and various stories even claim that Reynolds walked off the set, or was fired, due to conflicts with his star, who directed the final scenes himself. Whatever the case, their friendship and professional relationship ended with "Waterworld."

2 stars

Video review: "Moon"

Snooty cinephiles like to proclaim themselves indifferent to box office grosses, but I admit I pay pretty close attention to them. The reasoning is simple: Movies I like, I want to do well, so studios will have an incentive to make more like them.

"Moon," a tiny independent sci-fi film, made something like $5 million in theaters, which was probably less than the soda-and-snacks budget for "Avatar." Here's hoping "Moon" does well on video, because Hollywood needs more clever, imaginative movies like this one from first-time director Duncan Jones.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the solitary worker living aboard a lunar base responsible for collecting energy from moon rocks that powers much of Earth. His only companion is Gerty, a one-eyed robot (splendidly voiced by Kevin Spacey) very much in the tradition of Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Nearing the end of his three-year contract, Sam is anxious to get back planetside to his family. But after an accident, he wakes up to find there are now two Sams aboard the station.

Are they clones of each other? Hallucinations of a dying mind? Split personality a la "Fight Club"?

Jones and screenwriter Nathan Parker shrewdly play with the audiences' expectations to keep us constantly, and grippingly, guessing.

Extras are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD versions. They encompass a pretty wide scope of features, although they aren't the most compelling stuff I've seen.

Jones contributes to two separate commentary tracks; one paired with producer Stuart Fenegan, and the other teamed up with the cinematographer and designers. Both tend to be a lot of rambling shot-by-shot descriptions, without much depth or context.

There's a 16-minute making-of documentary, and an 11-minute featurette on the film's low-budget special effects, including the challenges of getting two Sam Rockwells to interact -- and even fight -- onscreen.

There is also over 30 minutes of Q&A with Jones, Rockwell and others at Sundance Film Festival and at Space Center Houston.


Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Avatar"

A critic should endeavor to go into a movie without any preconceived notions or biases. When that is not possible, they at least owe it to the reader to be honest and forthright about it. So I am compelled to say that I expected "Avatar" to be underwhelming.

Alright, let's be blunt: I really thought this movie was going to suck.

Boy, was I wrong -- wonderfully, joyously wrong. Never have I been so happy to have my expectations shattered.

Like many, I watched the trailers for "Avatar" and cringed. This is what writer/director James Cameron spent $300 million on (and by some estimates, much more) for his return to feature filmmaking after 12 years away? Never has a movie been so ill-served by its previews.

"Avatar" is epic in scope and in ambition. Cameron uses computer-generated characters and imagery not as accompaniment to live actors and sets, but as his main instrument.

This movie is visionary, a word that gets bandied about but has real weight here: This is a vision like nothing you've ever seen.

The blue-skinned aliens called Na'vi who looked so cheap and cheesy in the trailers are fleshy and corporeal (and nearly nude) in the finished film, best viewed in eye-popping 3-D. The lush forests, floating mountains and waterfalls of the world of Pandora are like a National Geographic pictorial on hallucinogens.

The story is familiar -- by my count, the third film this year portraying humans as exploiters of an alien world -- but feels fresh. The depiction of corporations as mindless mechanisms destroying in the name of greed is a common theme in Cameron's films ("Aliens," "The Abyss," "The Terminator" and its sequel).

Giovanni Ribisi plays the company flunky in charge of extracting a rare and valuable ore under Pandora's surface, even if it means displacing and killing the Na'vi. (Cameron shows some of his penchant for goofiness in naming the ore Unobtainium.) His right-hand man is the scarred, scary former Marine colonel (a terrific Stephen Lang) now commanding an army of mercenaries to do the dirty work.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Hollywood's new It Boy for big-budget spectaculars) is a crippled ex-Marine whose murdered twin brother volunteered for the new Avatar program, which grows special human/Na'vi hybrid bodies controlled by humans. Since Jake has the same DNA as his sibling, he's enlisted to take over his brother's avatar.

Jake's stuck between competing interests of the colonel, who wants to use the avatars to infiltrate the Na'vi, and the chief scientist (Cameron fave Sigourney Weaver), who envisions a peaceful outreach mission.

In his avatar form, Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi warrior and daughter of the clan chief (Wes Studi). She saves his blue bacon from some jungle dogs, though she's resentful of his presence and bumbling ways. But she gets a sign from the earth spirits her people worship to trust him.

The months pass, and Jake is eventually accepted into the tribe. The human bulldozers grind ever closer, however, and soon he'll have to choose loyalties.

Cameron slides easily between live action and computer-animated sequences, and while I won't overstate their success by claiming the transitions are seamless, they aren't jarring.

Some of the movie's metaphysical constructions have a dollop of hokum -- the depiction of the Na'vi as an emblem for American Indians grows stronger, and more strained, as the film progresses.

I still don't quite know what to think of the Na'vi's ability to mind-meld with flying dragons and other creatures via tiny tentacles every critter seems to have. It's like an entire world of animals outfitted with USB ports.

But quibbles aside, "Avatar" is a spectacle not to be missed. The game has changed.

3.5 stars

Review: "District 9"

One of the most thrilling movie experiences one can have is walking into a film you know next to nothing about, and being completely transported away to a wholly unexpected destination.

"District 9" is a South African film about an incursion of aliens coming to live on Earth, and being rounded up into a ghetto that gives the movie its name. That's pretty much all I knew about it beforehand.

It sounded like a knockoff of "Alien Nation," a 1988 James Caan flick with a similar theme. "District 9" starts out on an off-kilter, almost humorous note, but keeps layering in surprises and deeper subtexts.

The film unfolds in a documentary style. Our first encounter is with a buffoonish character named Wikus Van De Merwe, who sits in an office and talks in a bouncy sing-song pattern. It turns out he's a bureaucrat with MNU Alien Affairs, the public/private association tasked with overseeing nearly 2 million aliens housed in a shantytown outside Johannesburg.

Through archival footage we learn that the aliens' ship appeared one day over the city, sitting motionless and uncommunicative. Humans eventually cut into the craft and found a horde of starving aliens. Bug-like and chitinous, the aliens -- dubbed "prawns" in the same derogatory way people use terms like "gooks" -- did not seem to have much knowledge of the technology they carried with them.

It was theorized that these creatures were the worker drones of an insect-like alien race, and they certainly didn't seem very smart. They mostly scavenged bits of junk, and seemed to have a particular jones for cat food. So they were hoarded together and put into District 9 more than 20 years ago.

Now the human locals want the aliens moved to a concentration camp out in the countryside, and Wikus has been put in charge of the eviction and relocation. He was chosen solely because he is the son-in-low of the MNU chief, and because he's too out of his depth to oppose the heavy-handed tactics employed by the company's mercenaries. (The head merc is played by David James, who manages to be scary even when he's not doing anything.)

I don't want to say anything more about the plot, other than the relocation mission goes horribly awry, and Wikus finds himself forced to share the aliens' perspective.

Wikus is played by Sharlto Copley, who I was astonished to find is a first-time actor. Copley transforms his character over the course of the film from an inept corporate flunky into a sympathetic figure that the audience roots for. What a debut.

The aliens themselves are entirely computer-generated. Even their voices are not done by actors, but employ a series of clicks and scritches.

Director Neill Blomkamp, who co-write the script with Terri Tatchell, initially keeps his camera far away from the aliens, allowing them to be seen as scary and (literally) inhuman. As the story progresses, he moves in closer and closer on their faces, and picks out one in particular, who uses the human-given name Christopher Johnson. Christopher has a young son and seems craftier than his fellows; the walls of his shack are lined with bits of computers that he's evidently not using just for decoration.

"District 9" was based on a 6-minute short film by Blomkamp, which was discovered by Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" fame, who then scraped together $30 million to make a feature version. I'd say Blomkamp hit the lottery, except it's audiences who are the real winners.

3.5 stars